Cirrus@Austlit

Oodgeroo's Stradbroke Dreamtime was the first autobiographical narrative by an Aboriginal woman to gain a mainstream publisher, but, as Jones points out, the text was almost completely ignored by the literary establishment. It achieved good sales when marketed as a children's book. However, this sales success was founded upon Oodgeroo's acceptance of pragmatic compromise in the editorial preparation of the text. The paper argues that the published version is manifestly different form the manuscript in its ideological underpinning and political intentions, and that Oodgeroo's original representation of Aboriginality was occluded by an act of 'editorial double mimesis' during the production process.